Tracking COVID-19 in Missouri
Christopher Prener, Ph.D.
Last updated on 2020-05-15
Introduction
These maps summarize the latest available COVID-19 outbreak data from the New York Time’s COVID-19 project, the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 project, the City of St. Louis, and St. Louis County. The New York Times and Johns Hopkins data are used for state and county-level data, and local data sources are used for zip code and individual level data.
What Makes These Maps Unique?
Unlike other interactive maps being used to track the outbreak, the initial three maps include the counties in Illinois, Kansas, and Oklahoma that are part of Missouri’s metropolitan areas. Kansas City itself is also displayed here as if it were its own county. This is necessary because their public health department is reporting data for the city separate from the four counties that include parts of Kansas City.
The final map is also unique - it includes both the City of St. Louis and St. Louis County on one map and with a shared set of legend values, making direct comparisons possible. It shows Zip Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTAs), which are generalized areas that are roughly equivalent to USPS zip-codes. They are not 100% the same, however, and some homes with a given zip code may fall outside of ZCTA boundaries.
How to Use These Maps
These maps are fully interactive. Clicking on a county will reveal some details about that place. You can navigate around them just as you would with Google Maps. You can zoom with your mouse or the plus and minus buttons in the upper-left corner of each map. You may also move the maps around by clicking with your mouse and dragging.
Caveats
Due to lags in reporting, both at the public health department level and at the New York Times itself, these numbers may lag behind other figures reported in the media.
On May 6th, the New York Times began including probable cases (those without a confirmatory test result but where symptoms indicate a COVID-19 infection). These had been included in the Johns Hopkins data much earlier - as far back as mid-April following the CDC’s guidance on April 14th to states and counties that they should begin reporting these. Not all counties report probable cases, however, and so I include markers on plots to indicate when the reporting change beginning on April 15th may have occurred.
Daily Data
While the City of St. Louis, St. Louis County, and Kansas City provide day-by-day tracking of cumulative cases on their respective dashboards, the State of Missouri does not. The following tabs provide daily breakdowns of COVID data as well as additional statistics not included in the existing dashboards. Data are also provided for the wider St. Louis and Kansas City metro areas. Please note that the two average columns for reported cases and deaths are both seven-day rolling averages.
Missouri
St. Louis Metro
City of St. Louis
St. Louis County
Kansas City Metro
Kansas City
Daily Testing Data
Daily testing data are complied from a number of sources. For Missouri, the data set has been sourced directly from data posted by the Missouri Department of Health & Senior Services using a combination of data provided by Denis Beganovic, screen shots provided by The Atlantic’s COVID Tracking Project, and the wayback machine. For other states, data is sourced from The Atlantic’s COVID Tracking Project.
New Tests Average
Testing Rate
Percent Positive
Missouri Data
For Missouri, total numbers of test data are not available for many days in March and some days in April and May. For April and May, missing data are imputed using a linear technique. If Day 1 had 100 tests, and Day 3 had 200, Day 2 would assumed to have had 150 tests. Rates are per 100,000 residents, and averages are 7-day rolling averages.
All Data
For Missouri, total numbers of test data are not available for many days in March and some days in April and May. For April and May, missing data are imputed using a linear technique. If Day 1 had 100 tests, and Day 3 had 200, Day 2 would assumed to have had 150 tests. Rates are per 100,000 residents, and averages are 7-day rolling averages.
Health Care Infrastructure
This first map uses data from the Kaiser Health Network to identify counties (in gray) without any hospitals as well as the number of ICU beds per 1,000 residents in counties that do have hospitals. Keep in mind that some hospitals may have expanded ICU bed capacity in anticipation of increased need.
For Kansas City, all hospital and ICU bed data have been allocated to Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte Counties. If you have a sense of number of beds in Kansas City, MO itself as opposed to the surrounding counties, please feel free to drop me an email.
Infection Rates by County
This map shows infections as a rate per 1,000 residents. It is important not to map the raw counts themselves, but if you want to see those data, click on a county. You can also view the hospital infrastructure details from the first map for each county by clicking on them or by viewing the data table.
Map
Data Table
Average New Cases by County
This map shows a seven-day rolling average of new cases. For this map, this covers 2020-05-15 back through 2020-05-08. There is not a threshold for what constitutes a high or low average, but the higher the average number of new cases, the more new spread we can infer. For mapping purposes, these are displayed as a rate per 1,000 residents. As with the prior maps, additional details are available by clicking on each county or on the data table.